Howard Dean on War & Peace

Former VT Governor; Former Democratic Candidate for President

Iraq wasn't about UN permission-it wasn't an imminent threat

Q: You were quoted as saying that you would not have hesitated to attack Iraq this year, quote, "had the UN given us permission and asked us to be part of a multilateral force." Given President Bush's reference to "no permission slips" in the
State of the Union, do you now regret using that word?

DEAN: I would not have used the word "permission," nor is that what I meant. You know, my words are not always precise, but my meaning is very, very clear. Iraq was not an imminent threat to the US
We had successfully contained Iraq for 12 years with no-fly zones. They had virtually no Air Force to speak of. It turned out they did not have the weapons of mass destruction that people thought they did, myself included. It turned out that much of
what the president told us was not so. I believe that Saddam Hussein's removal from power is good. But I also believe that the way to have done it was to do it through the UN, which is why I opposed the president's war in Iraq from the beginning.

Vote by Lieberman, Kerry, & Edwards sent 500 soldiers to die

Q: Last week you said the three senators' decision to support the 2002 Iraq resolution, quote, "calls into question their judgment and ability to sort out complicated issues regarding the most crucial decision any president has to make."
Do you still feel that way?

DEAN: I do. We were presented with a series of facts. I came to a different conclusion than the senators did on those facts. My conclusion was that there was no Al Qaida in Iraq, as the president intimated.
My conclusion was that Iraq was not about to acquire nuclear weapons, as the president intimated. My conclusion was that we'd successfully contained Saddam Hussein.

DEAN: I was able to sort out that the president was not being candid with the American
people. We have lost 500 soldiers and 2,200 wounded. Those soldiers were sent there by the vote of Senator Lieberman and Senator Kerry and Senator Edwards. That is a fact. And I think that's a very serious matter. And it is a matter upon which we differ.

AdWatch: "My opponents voted for war"-negative but true

AD AUDIO: NARRATOR: Where did the Washington Democrats stand on the war? Dick Gephardt wrote the resolution to authorize war. John Kerry and
John Edwards both voted for the war. Then Dick Gephardt voted to spend another $87 billion on Iraq. Howard Dean has a different view.

DEAN: I opposed the war in Iraq, and I'm against spending another $87 billion there. Our party and our country need
new leadership.

ANALYSIS: While Dean has used the war issue hundreds of times, his decision to target three opponents with a negative ad is unusual for Iowa, which has a tradition of positive campaigning. It suggests he is also worried about Kerry and
Edwards, who trail Dean in Iowa, gaining momentum. The ad is factually accurate, but while Dean says he opposes the president's $87 billion budget for Iraq, he does not favor a quick pullout and therefore would have to spend some of that money.

Source: Ad-Watch of Iowa market, Washington Post, p. A06
Jan 14, 2004

Supported Afghan war & not Iraq, but always supports troops

Q: You said after Saddam Hussein was captured, that he could have been captured six months ago. Were you saying that our soldiers weren't working hard enough?

DEAN: Of course not. Our military has done an absolutely terrific job in Afghanistan, which
is a war I supported, and in Iraq, where I did not support the policy but I always support the troops. I believe that, had Saddam been captured earlier, we might have been able to spend more time looking for Osama bin Laden, which is the real problem.

US is no safer with Saddam gone-we're still losing troops

LIEBERMAN: The overthrow and then capture of Saddam Hussein has made America safer and made the world safer.

DEAN: I beg to differ. Saddam is a dreadful person and I'm delighted to see him behind bars. But since Saddam Hussein has been caught, we've
lost 23 additional troops; we now have, for the first time, American fighter jets escorting commercial airliners through American airspace. Saddam Hussein has been a distraction [from fighting Al Qaeda].

LIEBERMAN: We had good faith differences on the
war against Saddam. But I don't know how anybody could say that we're not safer with a homicidal maniac, a brutal dictator, an enemy of the US, a supporter of terrorism, a murderer of hundreds of thousands of his own people in prison instead of in power.
To say that we haven't obliterated all terrorism with Saddam in prison is a little bit like saying somehow that we weren't safer after WWII after we defeated Hitler because Stalin and the communists were still in power.

Fact Check: Fighter jet escorts since 9/11-not 12/2004

FACTCHECK on Terrorism: Dean argued that the US is less safe as a result of the Iraq invasion, but got it wrong when he said military jets were escorting airlines "for the first time."

DEAN: But the fact is, since Saddam Hussein has been caught,
we've lost 23 additional troops; we now have, for the first time, American fighter jets escorting commercial airliners through American airspace.

FACTCHECK: Actually, scrambling fighter jets to intercept and escort airliners has been fairly common ever
since Sept. 11, 2001. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has scrambled more than 1,600 such missions since the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon more than two years ago, according to a news report:

NORAD: Sometimes they're scrambled because someone has violated a restricted airspace, sometimes they're scrambled to respond to an emergency request, and there are other situations we can't discuss.

Bring in foreign troops & hold Iraqi election

Q: Do we have to keep if not the same number, possibly even a greater number of US troops in Iraq for some extended time?

DEAN: I think we need to bring in foreign troops. You cannot expect the Iraqis to think that they have their own government
if we're appointing their people. We need an election. Over a period of a few years, until the Iraqis really are able to have a democracy which is strong enough not to allow Al Qaida to emerge and has a constitution that's widely enough respected so
they will not have a fundamentalist Shiite regime.

KUCINICH: The war is not over. We have 130,000 troops there. And the occupation equals a war. My plan calls for the end of the occupation, for the US to get out. Now, the UN will not cooperate
unless the US takes a change of direction. And here's the change of direction: The Bush administration must let go of its aspirations to control the oil in Iraq. They must hand over to the UN the handling of the oil, on a transitional basis.

AdWatch: blames Gephardt for $87B-but Dean's view evolved

AD ANNOUNCER: October, 2002. Dick Gephardt agrees to co-author the Iraq war resolution-giving George Bush the authority to go to war. A week later, with Gephardt's support, it passes Congress. Then last month, Dick Gephardt votes to spend $87 billion
more on Iraq. Howard Dean has a different view.

DEAN: I opposed the war in Iraq . And I'm against spending another $87 billion there.

ANALYSIS: The ad accurately reminds viewers that Gephardt voted both to give George Bush the authority to wage war
in Iraq, and also for the $87-billion postwar reconstruction package. But Dean's statement is not exactly what Dean has said in the past:

Sep. 25: In a debate, Dean said there's "no choice" but to support the $87 billion.

Oct. 15:
The Associated Press quoted Dean as saying he would oppose the $87 billion, unless Bush repeals some tax cuts to pay for it.

Oct. 17: Dean said "we cannot cut and run"-and that he would have voted for the money if financed by repeal of tax cuts.

Source: Ad-Watch in Iowa by Fact Check.org
Dec 3, 2003

Bilateral negotiations with North Korea on nukes

Q: What could you do as president to end this stalemate and help to bring the government of Kim Jong-il into the world community?

A: Howard Dean: I think Bush's fundamental flaw in negotiating with North Korea is in fact his refusal to negotiate.
The North Koreans in principal have suggested, in return for a non-aggression pact, they would give up nuclear weapons. That is something we should explore in bilateral negotiations.

Source: Concord Monitor / WashingtonPost.com on-line Q&A
Nov 6, 2003

Bring 100,000 Muslim troops to replace US troops in Iraq

Q: Your web site says that you've "opposed President Bush's war in Iraq from the beginning." Now that that war can't be undone, what would you do about Iraq?

A: George Bush's father had over 100,000 foreign troops in Iraq, many of whom where from
Muslim nations. We need to bring troops from those countries back to Iraq to replace our Guard and Reserve troops and one of our two divisions in Iraq. This cannot be an American occupation it must be and international reconstruction effort.

Source: Concord Monitor / WashingtonPost.com on-line Q&A
Nov 6, 2003

Stopping genocide justifies unilateral intervention

Q: Do you believe there are any circumstances in which unilateral military intervention abroad might be justified?

A: There are some circumstances which allow unilateral interventions.
One is to stop genocide if no other world body had taken the responsibility to do that and, second, to defend the United States of America after an attack or to prevent an immediate attack.

Source: Concord Monitor / WashingtonPost.com on-line Q&A
Nov 6, 2003

Supports troops and veterans more than Bush

Q: You opposed the war and the $87 billion. What do you say to service members who view your position as something short of supporting the troops?

DEAN: I've made it very clear that we need to support our troops, unlike President Bush,
who tried to cut their combat pay after they'd been over there and he'd doubled their tour of duty, unlike President Bush who successfully cut 164,000 veterans off their health-care benefits.

Israeli security fence cannot be permanent

Dean described himself as optimistic about the chances of a peace agreement in the Middle East, based on US support for separate Israeli and Palestinian states, despite the current fighting and diplomatic stalemate.
He repeated his earlier promise that if elected, he would send former President Bill Clinton as his personal envoy to the Middle East.

In response to an audience question about the security fence under construction
to separate Israel and Israeli settlements from Palestinian territory, Dean struggled. "The Israelis have a right to defend themselves," he said, "but this is a very sad story," blocking even casual contact between the two peoples.
"The course of the wall," extending into disputed territory, "is a concern," he said, "as I have told the Israeli leadership. But this is a short-term tactic for defense against terror. The wall cannot be permanent."

Source: David S. Broder, Washington Post, Page A5
Oct 19, 2003

Evenhandedness in Israel doesn't imply cater to Palestinians

Dean stumbled into the Middle East thicket. Dean is unscripted; he speaks spontaneously. This is a strength; voters see it as candor. But it got him in trouble when he said that the US should not "take sides" in negotiations between Palestinians and
Israelis, and that an "enormous number" of Israel's West Bank settlements would have to be dismantled eventually.

Taken literally, nothing in that statement offends longstanding US policy, or majority public opinion on Israel. But certain phrases have
political resonance. Not to "take sides" sounded a little like being "evenhanded," an old phrase that once meant granting bona fides even to the Palestinian hard-liners who seek nothing less than Israel's dissolution.

Dean, whose wife and children are
Jewish, meant nothing of the sort. But-rookie mistake-he did not realize how his political opponents in both parties would jump on his wording. As he said a few days later, he would have to learn to use "different euphemisms."

Source: Citizen's Guide to the Man Who Would be President, p. 22
Oct 1, 2003

Yes on $87B for Iraq-repeal Bush tax cut to pay it

Q: [Bush has asked for] $87 billion for the ongoing war on terrorism. Your vote, yes or no, and if yes, how do you pay for $87 billion?

DEAN: We have no choice, but it has to be financed by getting rid of all the president's tax cuts. Even though
I did not support the war in the beginning, I think we have to support our troops. The $87 billion ought to come from the excessive and extraordinary tax cuts that this president foisted upon us, that mainly went to people like Ken Lay who ran Enron.

Source: Debate at Pace University in Lower Manhattan
Sep 25, 2003

If we abandon Iraq, it'll become a terrorist haven

Q: Is there a scenario in Iraq that you could give us where you would say I will pull troops out entirely?

DEAN: We can't do that. We cannot lose the peace in Iraq. This situation was created by Bush, who ignored the greater danger
in Iran and North Korea and Al Qaida at home to do it. This was a mistake, this war. And the president's gotten into it, now we're going to have to get out of it. But if we leave Iraq to chaos, Al Qaida may move in,
if we leave Iraq to a fundamentalist Shiite regime with Iranian influence, we will be in both circumstances worse off than we were when Saddam Hussein was president.

Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. Saddam Hussein was a dreadful man.
What we should have done is tried to focus on establishing a democracy in a Palestinian state and bring peace to the Middle East instead of invading Iraq and causing more complications and more death and more pain for our American families.

Source: Congressional Black Caucus Institute debate
Sep 9, 2003

Keep relationship with Israel but be a credible negotiator

Q: You recently said the US should not "take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." Do you mean that the US should maintain some sort of neutral stance to Israel? And does that include cutting foreign aid to Israel?

DEAN: Of course I don't mean
any such thing, that we're going to take a stance that belies our historic relationship with Israel. We've had a special relationship with Israel since 1948 when we were the first country to recognize Israel. What I do mean is we need to be a credible
negotiator, a facilitator for peace in the Middle East. And that means we have to be trusted by both sides.

If we want peace in the Middle East, we need to focus intensely on it, [unlike Bush,] who has taken an 18-month holiday on the whole matter.
We also need a renewable energy policy in this country, so we stop sending all our oil money to where they recycle it back into terror. And we ought to stand up to the Saudis, who are teaching small children in the Islamic world to hate Americans.

Source: Congressional Black Caucus Institute debate
Sep 9, 2003

My position on Israel is exactly the same as Bill Clinton's

Q [to Lieberman]: You criticized Dean for saying that the US shouldn't take sides. What's wrong with a new approach, if we are to be, as Dean suggested, impartial and able to act as a force for negotiation and peace?

LIEBERMAN: All of us have quite
correctly criticized Bush for breaking our most critical alliances. That is exactly what Howard Dean's comments over the last week about the Middle East have done. We have had a unique relationship with Israel. Based on values of democracy, and based on
mutual military strategic interests. We do not gain strength as a negotiator if we compromise our support of Israel. Dean has said he wouldn't take sides, but then he has said Israel ought to get out of the West Bank.

DEAN: My position on Israel is
exactly the same as Bill Clinton's. I want to be an honest broker. We desperately need peace in the Middle East. It doesn't help to demagogue this issue.

LIEBERMAN: Dean's statements break a 50-year record of supporting our relationship with Israel.

Source: Congressional Black Caucus Institute debate
Sep 9, 2003

Iraq: Admit we humiliated our allies and get UN help

Q: What do you think of the US trying to get help from the UN to internationalize the mission in Iraq?

DEAN: I believed from the beginning that we should not go into Iraq without the UN as our partner. We cannot do this by ourselves.
We have to have a reconstruction of Iraq with the United Nations, with NATO, and preferably with Muslim troops, particularly Arabic-speaking troops from our allies such as Egypt and Morocco.

We cannot have American troops serving under UN command.
We have never done that before. But we can have American troops serving under American command, and it's very clear to me that in order to get the UN and NATO into Iraq, this president is going to have to go back to the very people he humiliated,
our allies, on the way into Iraq, and hope that that they will now agree with us that we need their help there. We were wrong to go in without the United Nations, now we need their help, and that's not a surprise.

Source: Democratic Primary Debate, Albuquerque New Mexico
Sep 4, 2003

Iraq: Bush lied about al Qaeda, about nukes, and about WMDs

I supported the first war in Iraq because one of our allies was invaded, and we had a responsibility to defend them. I supported the war in Afghanistan; 3,000 of our people were murdered. I thought we had a right to defend the US.

But in the case of
Iraq, the president told us that Al Qaida and Saddam Hussein were about to make a deal. The president told us that Iraq was buying uranium from Africa. That wasn't true. They told us that the Iraqis were about to get atomic weapons. That turned out not
to be true. They told us they knew exactly where the weapons of mass destruction were, right around Tikrit and Baghdad. That turned out to be false as well.

As commander in chief of the US military, I will never hesitate to send troops anywhere in the
world to defend the US. But I will never send our sons and daughters to a foreign country in harm's way without telling the truth to the American people about why they're going there. And that judgment needs to be made first, not afterwards.

Source: Democratic Primary Debate, Albuquerque New Mexico
Sep 4, 2003

Bring US troops home

Q: We are spending more than $4 billion a month in Iraq. Do we send more troops?

DEAN: We need more troops. But they're going to be foreign troops, as they should have been in the first place, not American troops. Ours need to come home.

Source: Democratic Primary Debate, Albuquerque New Mexico
Sep 4, 2003

Tear up the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war

Q: Will you repeal Bush's pre-emptive war doctrine?

A: The Bush doctrine of preemptive war is wrong for America, and sets a dangerous precedent. So many who supported the war now say that they are opposed to the doctrine of preemption. Then why did
they vote for this preemptive war? I opposed the President's war on Iraq, I continue to stand against his policy of preemption, and on my first day in office I will tear up the Bush doctrine and rebuild a foreign policy consistent with American values.

Source: MoveOn.org interview
Jun 17, 2003

Happy that Saddam is gone; keep a strong military; but...

Q: On March 19 Pres. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq. Was that the right decision at the right time?

KERRY: I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity, but I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein, and
when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him.

Q: Gov. Dean, you've criticized Sen. Kerry on the campaign trail saying he's tried to have it both ways on the issue of Iraq.

DEAN: I'm delighted to
see Saddam Hussein gone. I appreciate that we have a strong military in this country, and I'd keep a strong military in this country. But this was the wrong war at the wrong time because we have set a new policy of preventive war in this country.
Sooner or later we're going to see another country copy [that policy].

Q: But do you believe Kerry is still trying to have it both ways?

DEAN: That's not up to me to judge that. That's up to the voters to judge that, and I'm sure they will.

Afghanistan requires more than military victory

One fear is that we will leave Afghanistan militarily successful, but without rebuilding that nation to ensure we aren't leaving behind a nation harboring even larger numbers of American-hating terrorists.
Defense is not just about building better bombs and intelligence capacity, although these are important. Good defense policy is also about long range vision, and that means engagement with the world.

Deal with terrorism as a joint federal-state responsibility.

Dean adopted the National Governors Association policy:

Handling Information Needs. Many of the operational, programmatic, and funding activities associated with terrorism consequence management preparedness are classified because of national security. Thus, the sharing of critical information is hampered. State governments must be viewed as strong partners in the USí national security efforts, particularly as related to terrorism.

Managing Consequences.Managing the short- and long-term consequences of terrorism is among the responsibilities of state and local government supplemented by the resources of the federal government, coordinated by FEMA.

Supporting Public-Private Cooperation. Terrorism preparedness efforts should be inclusive of key private sector entities such as defining the appropriate roles and responsibilities for public and private health and medical communities.

Clarifying the Role of the National Guard. The role of the National Guard in terrorism
response activities is to support federal, state, and local response agencies with equipment, facilities, and personnel. Any assignment of responsibility should enhance the nationís terrorism consequence management capability and provide for the contingency of the National Guard being called to assist active and reserve components in dealing with a major military conflict.

Federal Responsibility Governors recognize the need to coordinate programs among federal agencies to address domestic terrorism and appreciate the efforts of the National Domestic Preparedness Office. However, they encourage greater clarification of the currently fragmented structure of federal responsibilities and support increased cooperation among federal agencies to better enable states to plan for domestic terrorism responses. Governors urge appropriate funding, maximum coordination of program components, and coordinated service delivery within states and localities.

Include states in anti-terrorism planning.

Dean adopted the National Governors Association position paper:

The Issue

The issue of terrorism will be of major focus for the 107th Congress. Governors have a critical interest in controlling domestic terrorism because they are responsible for ensuring that state and local authorities have the ability to deal with natural disasters and other types of major emergencies, including terrorist incidents.

NGAís Position

NGA believes that any national strategy for dealing with terrorist incidents should include planning and training by state and local forces. The unique nature of terrorism coupled with national security implications requires the support and expertise of the federal government in working with state and local government in developing capabilities. A clear national strategy developed through a partnership among federal agencies and key state, local, and private sector stakeholders is essential to drive operational and programmatic planning, training, and service delivery in combating terrorism.